Of the seven Kerrigan children only Katie remains in South Niagara. Years ago she’d wanted desperately to leave but had not left, remained in South Niagara because of our mother and now it looks as if she will never leave, she has said.

How like a gigantic tree, a family. No matter if the tree is badly damaged, beginning to die and to rot, roots are entangled underground, inextricably.

As Mom and I struggle to speak together, faltering, lapsing into silence and beginning again, our cousin Trix has been hovering nearby. Watching my face, gauging my emotions like a trained professional.

(Does she expect me to faint? Burst into tears again, like an overgrown child? Strange to see a younger cousin regarding me like a medical worker.) Seeing that Mom and I are doing reasonably well Trix offers to bring the other rosebushes from my car and trots off—breaking into an elated run—eager to exercise her strong, muscled legs.

Husky girl in her early twenties with a big easy smile, a thick ponytail bouncing behind as she runs. Badly I wish to know Trix, to have known Trix as she was growing up. One of many cousins! I have lost all my cousins. I have virtually no family. It is my fault almost entirely—I might have tried harder to keep them even when they’d rejected me.

Feeling a stab of guilt, how I’d taken Aunt Irma for granted. I vow: I will call Irma, visit her soon. I will behave in a way to allow her husband Oscar to know that whatever took place between us, or did not quite take place, I’ve forgotten, forgiven.

“Aunt Lula, look! Gorgeous roses for you.”

Trix has returned with the other bushes which she sets down in front of my mother.

“Oh, thank you! Are these from—?” Mom glances about, uncertain. In the fog of her confusion she yet retains a wifely, motherly instinct for not wishing to hurt anyone’s feelings.

“From Violet, Aunt Lula. You know—Violet.”

“From me, Mom. For your garden.”

Now, we have something to talk about. Something to look at, to regard together, to admire. And I can identify the roses for my mother. The red climber rose is Dublin Bay. The yellow rose is King’s Ransom. The exquisite pale pink/lavender rose is Sapphire.

While Mom looks on blinking and smiling Trix and I plant the rosebushes in her garden. The soil is moist, dark, almost bare of weeds; obviously, someone has been helping my mother with the garden which is flourishing with bright-colored zinnias, dahlias, delicate coneflowers, marigolds, bachelor’s buttons as well as several rosebushes in reasonably healthy condition.

“Remember, Mom? Those Japanese beetles that used to eat your roses?”—the memory returns to me, with a flood of childish nostalgia.